A solid majority of faculty members (58 percent) described themselves as filled more with fear than with excitement ... . Meanwhile, academic technology administrators —defined as “individuals with responsibility for some aspect of academic technology at their institutions”—were overwhelmingly enthused; 80 percent said the online boom excited more than frightened them.

A new study—quite timely in light of the University of Virginia presidency situation and its relationship to online learning—shows faculty more fearful of online learning than tech administrators. Here’s an Inside Higher Ed article about it and here’s the PDF of the study. Inside Higher Ed is having a free webcast about this report on July 10.

Faculty and tech administrators also disagree on assessment of online instruction:

Meanwhile, online courses tend to generate more data from which instructors and their overseers can glean quantitative insights on student engagement and the degree to which a professor has succeeded in meeting specific learning objectives.

Administrators seemed more confident that their institutions were indeed supplying their online instructors with good quality-assessment tools; more than 50 percent of administrators believed their institutions had such tools in place, compared to 25 percent of faculty members.

According to Engineering News Record:

Owner outsourcing of management and operations work has increased dramatically since 2006, according to a new survey of owners. The survey of 191 owners was released on Nov. 3 and conducted by Raleigh, N.C.-based management consultant FMI Corp. and McLean, Va.-based Construction Management Association of America. It found that outsourcing at the program-activation phase increased by 60% between 2006 and 2009 and by 30% in the operations and maintenance phase. It also found that over the next five years outsourcing will continue to increase in nearly all phases of the construction process.

You can download the PDF of that study, which has many more implications, here (PDF), from the CMAA website.

 Last month ACUHO-I (the Association of College and University Housing Officers - International) released the results of a survey of its members regarding the economic impact the recession and funding changes have had on housing operations and planning. By the large the indicators look better than a year ago, but not as good as two years ago. This is a well-done survey and the results will be useful and interesting to planner, both for planning purposes and for their own benchmarking.

The questions respondents answered related to travel freezes, hiring freezes, salary increases, making departmental funds available to other entities, construction and renovation, planned capital purchases, and demand for on-campus housing within the next three years.

Of particular interest to physical planners, the number of respondents who anticipated restrictions on planned capital purchases, decreased in the past two years from 55% to 31% in this latest survey.

Read the executive summary of the ACUHO-I Economic Impact survey.

http://ht.ly/22byT

Don't miss out on joining nearly 1,500 of your colleagues and peers at higher education's premier planning event of 2010, SCUP–45. The Society for College and University Planning's 45th annual, international conference and idea marketplace is July 10–14 in Minneapolis!

Here's your SCUP Link to "How Campuses Are Changing Procurement for Cost Containment: A Major Study"

This is the kind of resource planners need in order to be on top of the changing environment. The report, from AASCU and NAEP, is based on a survey of chief procurement offices at US institutions. On this Web page, the news release, an executive summary, and the full report can be downloaded.

From the joint press release:

“At a time when federal and state lawmakers are calling on higher education leaders to do more with less, attention must also be paid to the role that state regulatory reform can play in reducing costs and improving efficiency,” says AASCU President Muriel A. Howard.

“Such reform in the multibillion-dollar higher education procurement enterprise offers great opportunity for individual campuses and university systems to streamline purchasing operations to save time and money, and to increase product and service quality. But most importantly, it would enable the redirecting of critical resources toward universities’ core missions of teaching and learning,” she says.

The survey reveals that although U.S. public colleges and universities frequently use technologies that facilitate smart purchase expenditures, further improvements can be realized through the use of additional e-procurement tools that can help institutions better assess, control and leverage procurement expenditures. The study also notes that institutions authorized by state policy to participate in cooperative purchasing arrangements are making broad use of such compacts.

“This study affirms that, while institutions are making gains in boosting cost savings and productivity in their procurement operations, much more can be done, in partnership with states, to streamline the procurement process,” said Doreen Murner, CEO of NAEP. “The purchasing function on college campuses can often go unnoticed. Yet this study illustrates its pervasiveness and underscores the opportunity for reform, while maintaining accountability for taxpayer-provided appropriations and students’ tuition dollars.”